After a stressful day at work, I opened my email box and immediately burst into gales of laughter when I opened this message:
Honestly, I don’t think anyone could have found a better way to lighten my m**d and put a g**n on my face than the American Family Association did. It’s no surprise that they’re offended by n*de posters. And it’s no surprise that they’re outraged that the quintessential American department store, Sears, is selling such posters on its web site. It’s not even a surprise that Tim Wildmon, AFA president and author of this letter, couldn’t bring himself to spell the word “sexual.” What I found to be just a bit over the top, though, was that sweet, innocent Tim couldn’t even bring himself to write out the word “nudity.”
Memo to Tim: If I’m old enough for you to solicit my donations (I am and you did), then I’m old enough to read such naughty words as “nudity” and “sexual.” I’m also old enough not to be the least bit impressed by your prudishness. Grow up and get a life!
Here’s a suggestion, Tim: if you want adult businesspeople to treat you like adults with a legitimate concern, and respond to your emails and phone calls, you need to communicate like an adult. If you want adult citizens to treat you like adults with a legitimate concern, and support your cause, you need to communicate like an adult. Acting like a school child spelling out dirty words is not the way to gain respect from either Sears or me.
I particularly like the complaint that the posters are offensive because “Very little is left to the imagination.” Perhaps Tim tried to compensate for that shortcoming by compelling his readers to im**ine the words with the del***d le**ers. It didn’t work. But, it did amuse me.
Believe it or not, there’s more and it gets better:
I wonder how many of Tim’s good, clean Christian readers found that page titillating rather than offensive and are now scouring Sears’ web site in search of more stimulation? I wonder how many of Tim’s employees endured the drudgery of scouring through thousands of photos at the Sears web site to find those pictures? I wonder how many of them volunteered for the task? I wonder how many of them are hoping they get a similar assignment next week – maybe at JC Penney’s? All for the sake of research, of course. And to warn their readers, yet again, of Internet perils.
And to market the AFA’s porn filter.
Here’s a wider view of the porn spread page:
If you click on the American Family Filter link, you’ll get this page:
Well, thank you, Jesus! The AFA has three different filter packages, priced at $ 49.95, $69.95 and $49.95 respectively. How convenient. There’s a problem/need and they have the solution for it. That sounds suspiciously like Marketing 101 to me: develop a product, then create the need for it. It tells me all I need to know about the AFA’s so-called high-minded Christian principles. This email wasn’t about moral offense or Christian activism at all. It was about selling a product.
Of course it was. That’s all Christianity has ever been about.
– the chaplain
Unikraken
August 3, 2010 at 9:02 pm
This isn’t surprising to me at all. Right-wingers are really only two kinds of people: the religious who have really bought into all the bullshit and the capitalists who saw a niche in the market and went for it.
Moe
August 3, 2010 at 9:20 pm
and they tap into the fear that someone somewhere might actually be having some fun and it must be STOPPED!
I think you found AFA out. Isn’t this the Tony Perkins crowd?
the chaplain
August 3, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Unikraken:
Welcome to the chapel. I don’t recall seeing you here before. If you have been here, just call me senile and accept my apologies. You’ve described right-wingers pretty accurately, IMO.
Moe:
The weird thing is, I had no idea where this post was going when I started writing. I captured the first two screen shots, then decided to follow the filter link, and it all fell into place.
Tony Perkins’ crowd is the Family Research Council. There are so many of these groups, it’s hard to tell them apart without an owner’s manual.
Moe
August 3, 2010 at 9:33 pm
The tragedy is that beyond all the individual folks they’ve used and abused by encouraging fear and ignorance, they’ve also hurt the entire society. They’re as much a part of the polarization of recent decades as the politicians.
atimetorend
August 3, 2010 at 10:12 pm
Well I agree with the AFA — that is pornographic! The thought crossed my mind reading your post that it could be spam intended to link the innocent AFA email reader into temptation. I wonder what percentage of readers click the “found here” link because “they must see the proof,” and what percentage because, well, “They must see the proof!!!“. Perhaps Mr. Wildmon is living up to his name…
Nice pick up on the connection to the merchandise through their site. I read something somewhere else this week about how porn is a big money maker for evangelicals, I forget where. Mobilize the troops to vote against secularism and shill for a few extra bucks while your at it… :^(
1minionsopinion
August 3, 2010 at 10:16 pm
I had to go have a look around sears.com to see how long it’d take to find those pictures. Then I got distracted by the religious art. I found the Circumcision of The Infant Jesus on page two (24 pics per page), for example. Page 6 had St. Matthew, and some Correggio thing with the virgin and child.
I wonder if someone really did have to go through 900,000 + images to find those skin pics. A dog lover could complain about the number of kittens, too.
the chaplain
August 3, 2010 at 10:34 pm
Moe:
It’s ironic that religion, which is supposed to draw people closer together, has played a significant role in polarizing political and social discourse in the past couple of decades.
ATTR:
The nature of the photographs was not the key issue for the AFA, although they tried to pretend it was; it was simply a hook to sell their product. If no one was offering Internet porn, the AFA wouldn’t be able to sell its software. Basically, the AFA is a parasite on the porn industry in this matter.
1minionsopinion:
Do you know anyone who could develop a spam blocker for religious content? Oh, wait – that might shut down the whole Internet.
Sarge
August 4, 2010 at 8:02 am
I remonstrated with my wife (she is an MCA with Sears) over those pictures. WHY HADN’T SHE told ME ABOUT THEM!!?? She was quite surprised to see them, hadn’t known that they were there.
The sole contribution that the Wildmon’s and Perkins’ can make to the good of society is if they reported to the nearest rendering plant and had themselves boiled down for glue… but it probably wouldn’t stick.
alex-a
August 4, 2010 at 9:55 am
@ the chaplain:
I think we already have that. It’s called critical thinking, and it filters more BS than just religion
Kagehi
August 4, 2010 at 3:59 pm
Religion was **never** intended to bring people together. Its primary purposes have always been to a) create an “in group”, so that everyone else could be defined as enemies, and b) present those with power and control with easy, and simple to explain, justifications for committing wars on those *not* in the group. Arguing anything else is a bit like watching someone lose a limb, while trying to use a boat propeller to make smoothies, and then stating, “Its terrible how something designed for the kitchen can become so dangerous!” Unless you are intentionally being sarcastic, and this is quite possible (a smiley helps. lol), the intent doesn’t match the mechanism.
the chaplain
August 4, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Sarge:
I take it you and Mrs. Sarge don’t buy your artwork from Sears. That’s probably a sign of your good taste.
alex-a:
Too bad critical thinking doesn’t come in a box.
Kagehi:
You and I and thinking atheists know that religion is a divider, not a uniter (to paraphrase a recent President). But, religious apologists keep telling us the opposite. BTW, should I take it that you don’t recommend using propellers to make smoothies?
Lorena
August 4, 2010 at 7:35 pm
I bet that Sears will make more money out of Tim’s propaganda than his lousy software.
Sarge
August 4, 2010 at 9:15 pm
My wife (before they went the MCA route) used to sell “Intimate Apparell”., and she actually had customers who came from Frostburg, WV and Jamestown, NY who would actually wnat her to wait on them because she knew what was what with it.
Even now she does say that there is a bit of “porn” that happens right in the store. Yes!
It’s true, I tell you!
Usually it is some sweet old dear in their 70s or 80s who wants a certain item, and they will lift up their blouse or pull their skirt in a way that displays all there is to see and that some do, in fact, regard as distressing as they make this display while the public at large is passing by.
She usually will invite them to a dressing room as she needs “to examine the tag” if such an occurance is imminenet.
(I told my wife and some of her colleagues that they should have some bead necklaces handy for such emergencies. They stared at me in a fearsome and baleful manner)
Her colleagues tend to get a bit flighty in such a situation, but she takes it in stride. She says that they will often remark, “They’re boobs, or what’s left of ‘em. If ya never saw a set before, take a good look.” Also, “If they never seen a set (or an ass) before they won’t know what they’re looking at, and if they have they shouldn’t be surprised”. Plus a few opine that if a flash of an old womans undies gets them heated, there’s bigger problems afoot than immodesty.
PhillyChief
August 5, 2010 at 9:14 am
Damn, where can I find this pornography on Sears’ site? All I find are pictures of appliances. Why are Christians so damn adept at finding porn? We atheists could learn a thing or two from them.
The thumbnail was too small for me to identify the work, but seeing a painting in their group immediately makes my blood boil.
Robster
August 6, 2010 at 1:14 am
A post above asks if there’s a spam blocker for religious nonsense. Pleased to report there is! Take a look at this site: http://godblock.com/ it’s great fun and can protect the kids from the deluge of nonsense that exists on the net as ‘information’.
desertscope
August 6, 2010 at 11:51 am
I typed in “posters” on the Sears site, and on the first two pages, found only flowers. Either I haven’t the research skills or the time of an AFA researcher. I love how the painting (middle, bottom row) is pornography. A sizable fraction of the great art from the Renaissance must meet their definition.
People find the forbidden titillating. The more Puritanical they get, the broader the scope of “pornography” becomes. If their efforts were ever to succeed to the extent that the Taliban’s efforts succeeded, teenagers would be sneaking pictures of bare wrists and ankles. Of course the stonings that followed would be good family entertainment.
Nightcap
August 6, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Thank God for Donald Wildmon! Thank God for his saintly efforts to protect young eyes from n*dity and the sort of indecent material that might lead them down the perilous path of s*x*al thoughts!
It’s so Christian of the Reverend Wildmon to make available, at such reasonable prices, a web filter that can protect me and my family from the evil Internet. What makes BSecure different from other filters is that they have actual human beings who carefully and painstakingly examine each and every questionable site for immoral content before adding it to the blacklist. They view the p*rn so we don’t have to! And, just in case, they keep a log of every single disgusting or ungodly site that your husband or children might be trying to visit when you’re not monitoring their every mouse-click.
Where would we be without such public-spirited watchdogs protecting our progeny from prurience?
the chaplain
August 6, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Robster:
Does godblock only work against gods, or does it block ghosts, ghouls, goblins and other nasties?
des:
Some of the nude statues in the Vatican had fig leaves added to their genitalia, by order of various popes. Not all of them, though – there were just too many of them hanging around the place for the sculptors to get around to rendering all of them family-friendly. God forbid that anyone should see all those flaccid stone and marble penises and lose control of themselves right there in the Holy See!
Nightcap:
Their selfless devotion to humankind’s good is humbling and inspiring. I’m sure there are several candidates for sainthood lurking in the halls of AFA.
desertscope
August 6, 2010 at 9:07 pm
Yet the cherubs remain leafless… Odd…
Moe
August 6, 2010 at 7:32 pm
The Holy See . . . who knew there was a double meaning?
Sean the Blogonaut
August 7, 2010 at 1:30 am
Truly blatant marketing, guarantee idiot will fall for it though
Tommykey
August 9, 2010 at 12:37 pm
FWIW, I bought some stuff from Sears this past weekend!